Walking and Falling
Last light falls through the high reaches of the darkening sky.
It will be twilight soon. Although not yet.
Not yet.
I am in love with this movement.
In love with the day, with my pitifully short life.
The planet upon which I live spinning in the deep
and neglected weeds of the weary edge of the Milky Way;
the dog shitting in the flower bed,
the endless droning of the news.
I pick at a deep cut on the palm of my hand.
The nail bed of my left thumb is blackening.
Cobwebs thicken on the sill. Husks of dead flies.
Flakes of our dead skin accumulate
after falling slowly through the air.
We’ve filtered each atom through our laboring lungs
to fill this room of our sad lovemaking and our
brilliant despair, our longings and recriminations,
our lovely disgust, this love we can't break.
I am hungry for a steak.
I rub my sore neck with my cut hands
and twist my empty head from side to side.
I am in love with you. I am in love
with the whole blasted contraption.
I court the dark knight of my own undoing.
That is a lie, you’d say.
And I’d have to agree.
While biting your hands. While undressing you
in a white room slowly filling with light.
While bending you to my will.
While taking from you what you
would willingly give.
While coming unmoored.
While crying and not knowing why.
I said before that the last light was falling.
I look at your eyes and see something still there.
The bruises are fading. From all our imagined injuries,
our treasured injustices.
It’s time to turn off the television, time to take our medicine,
time to make our beds and lie in them.
*
It will be twilight soon. Although not yet.
Not yet.
I am in love with this movement.
In love with the day, with my pitifully short life.
The planet upon which I live spinning in the deep
and neglected weeds of the weary edge of the Milky Way;
the dog shitting in the flower bed,
the endless droning of the news.
I pick at a deep cut on the palm of my hand.
The nail bed of my left thumb is blackening.
Cobwebs thicken on the sill. Husks of dead flies.
Flakes of our dead skin accumulate
after falling slowly through the air.
We’ve filtered each atom through our laboring lungs
to fill this room of our sad lovemaking and our
brilliant despair, our longings and recriminations,
our lovely disgust, this love we can't break.
I am hungry for a steak.
I rub my sore neck with my cut hands
and twist my empty head from side to side.
I am in love with you. I am in love
with the whole blasted contraption.
I court the dark knight of my own undoing.
That is a lie, you’d say.
And I’d have to agree.
While biting your hands. While undressing you
in a white room slowly filling with light.
While bending you to my will.
While taking from you what you
would willingly give.
While coming unmoored.
While crying and not knowing why.
I said before that the last light was falling.
I look at your eyes and see something still there.
The bruises are fading. From all our imagined injuries,
our treasured injustices.
It’s time to turn off the television, time to take our medicine,
time to make our beds and lie in them.
*
posted by tearful dishwasher at 5:08 PM
4 Comments:
jesus, scott. you sure know how to fuck up a person's mind. this lovely piece is so far removed from ego that the word might belong to a foreign language. if i could get down on my knees with some assurance i'd be able to get up again unassisted, that is where i would go. where this one wants to take us. bless you.
Jim-
I'm just grateful this came out at all. Thanks for your kind words.
Scott
Scott, I keep coming back to this to pick the meat off the bones. This is what feeds me
the dog shitting in the flower bed,
the endless droning of the news.
I pick at a deep cut on the palm of my hand.
The nail bed of my left thumb is blackening.
Cobwebs thicken on the sill. Husks of dead flies
I am hungry for a steak.
I rub my sore neck with my cut hands
I am in love with you. I am in love
with the whole blasted contraption.
While biting your hands. While undressing you
It’s time to turn off the television, time to take our medicine,
time to make our beds and lie in them.
The poem is filled with great beauty, almost too much beauty for me. The parts I culled above appeal to me hugely for their honesty, their specific attention to detail and for the way they reveal the humaness and the vulnerability of the speaker. The speaker became real through the physical images.
Good stuff. Thank you.
Last light falls through the high reaches of the darkening.
I am in love with this movement.
I pick at a deep cut on the palm of my hand.
Cobwebs thicken on the sill.
Our laboring lungs fill
this room of our sad lovemaking, our brilliant despair.
I am hungry for a steak.
I am in love with you.
I am in love with the whole blasted contraption.
While biting your hands.
While bending you to my will.
While coming unmoored.
I look at your eyes and see something still there.
The bruises are fading.
These, for me, are the bones. The whole thing is lovely, but if you stripped away the meat, these bones would glow in the dark.
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